


Light

by imaginentertain



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Gen, Tumblr Prompt, and speaks before thinking, but what else is new, in which Robert is an idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 08:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10963923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginentertain/pseuds/imaginentertain
Summary: Humans are a funny species sometimes.  Tell someone not to do something and we will, almost out of spite.  Sometimes we can’t help it, it’s instinctual and as natural as breathing.  Sometimes what someone says to us just pushes a button and we act without thought.Sometimes it’s all of the above.





	Light

Humans are a funny species sometimes.  Tell someone not to do something and we will, almost out of spite.  Sometimes we can’t help it, it’s instinctual and as natural as breathing.  Sometimes what someone says to us just pushes a button and we act without thought.

Sometimes it’s all of the above.

 

* * *

 

They open the door to Liv’s music (louder than normal but not club levels - yet) and her singing along to whatever album is playing over the Sonos speakers.  No sign of Chas, but it is the middle of the day and even Liv can be trusted to not ruin the house for a few hours.

They call out and are immediately greeted with a curse that definitely did not come from either of them and the music shutting off suddenly.

“You’re home early!” she cries out.

“What can I say?” Aaron replies as he takes off his shoes.  “We missed you too much.”

“Hang on!” she yells.  “Don’t come in yet.”

“What, is she dancing around in her underwear?” Rob quips.  “Liv, whatever you--”

He’s rounded the corner and now he can see.  Stunned into silence which is never a good thing.

“Don’t be mad,” Liv starts.  “Let me explain--”

“What the  _hell_  are you doing with those?” Robert says, somehow combining a hiss with a yell.  He surges forward towards the table where there are boxes and open albums and loose pictures all scattered about like they’ve been dropped.  He’s immediately gathering them together before anyone can stop him.  “You’ve been going through my things.”

“Rob, no--”

“You had no _right_ ,” he hisses/yells and Liv actually recoils under the venom that’s there.  “These are private.”

“Liv?” Aaron asks, touching her shoulder gently.  “What’s--?”

“Having a good look, were you?” Robert continues, bundling the photos into the boxes and stacking them up.  He snaps the albums closed and shoves them under his arm.  “Wondering how the perfect family ended up the way we did?”

“No,” Liv says, her voice unnaturally small and nervous. “Robert, it wasn’t like that I swear--”

“You went through my stuff,” he snaps, his voice rising with every word.  “God knows what else you’ve been up to.  You said your mum would keep an eye on her,” he added, turning on Aaron.

“Robert!” Aaron yells in response and that cuts through his anger.  “What is going on?”

“These are  _my_  pictures,” Robert says, his voice loud but a little of the harshness gone.  “They’re all I have left of Mum and she’s rifling through them like she has rights to them.”

“Actually some of them are Vic’s,” Liv says, still quiet and tucking herself under Aaron’s arm.  “She was the one to dig yours out though.  Says she knows where you hide things.”

“What?” Robert asks, his voice a lot quieter now.

“You weren’t supposed to be home until tomorrow.”  Liv pries herself away from Aaron, walking the long way ‘round to clearly avoid being near Robert, and pulling her easel into view.

She’d thrown herself into Robert’s arms when he’d given her that, not caring at all what she was doing.  It had been followed up with good canvases and good pencils and paints.  If she was going to be the artist she could be then she would have the best materials possible.

The frame was angled towards them a little, but Robert sees the subject before it was fully revealed.

“I needed references,” Liv says.  “Vic helped.”

A half-finished painting of Sarah Sugden stares at Robert, her one finished eye alight with life and love and Liv’s talent.

He puts the albums on the table and walks into his bedroom, shutting the door.

“Happy birthday,” Liv says quietly.

 

* * *

 

He hears the door open, knows what’s coming.

“I was an idiot.”

“Yeah, you were.”

He’s surprised to hear Liv’s voice, is immediately up from where he was sitting on the edge of the bed and walking over to her.  He stops himself before he gets too close.

“I’m so sorry, Liv.  I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“It’s OK,” she says.  “I get it.”

“There was no reason for me to react like that.”

“I wanted you to have something,” she says.  “There’s no photos of your family in this home and that’s not right.  Aaron’s said you and your dad didn’t get on, and I know you and Andy weren’t exactly close.  You don’t have a picture of your mum without them in it too so I wanted you to have something that was just her.”

“There’s one picture,” Robert says.  He crosses to his side of the bed, opens the drawer in the unit and pulls out a book.  It’s not his taste so Liv has an idea of why it’s there before he takes out the picture that had been used as a bookmark.  “It was the one used at the funeral.”

“Not what you want to remember,” Liv says, looking at the offered photo but not touching it.

Robert puts the photo back in place, puts the book on the bed, and goes back to her.  “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s OK.”

“No, it’s not.  But thank you for saying that.”

“You’ve had to put up with worse from me.”

“I’m the adult though.”

She scrunches her nose, grins, cocks her head to the side the way Aaron does right before he makes a quip.  “Debatable,” she says and it’s her brother he hears.  And then she moves forward and wraps her arms around his waist.  “If it’s too much then I won’t finish it.  You won’t have a present in time but--”

“No, finish it.  I’d love that,” Robert says, his arms tight around his new little sister.  “Thank you.”

“And next time you’re coming home early, call,” she says as she leaves.

 

* * *

 

 

Now that he knows Liv asks him about Sarah for the details.  Over takeaway and wine Robert tells Liv and Aaron stories that he’s not spoken out loud in years.  Little things that she did, the things she had.  He feels like he’s sitting for Liv in a way, as she draws and paints and sketches as he talks.  Asks questions about colours and jokes and what she did when Robert was sick.

It’s past midnight before any of them realise.  Aaron kisses Robert and wishes him a happy birthday, going to get the gift from where he’d hidden it.  It’s a practical gift, but that was what they did and they were happy about it.

There’s no mention of bedtime so they stay up until they can’t any longer, at which point Liv is picking up a Sharpie and bending down.  She scribbles at the bottom of the frame then steps back.

“OK,” she declares and looks at Robert.

He walks around and it’s like she’s there in the room with them.  Her face and her smile are as real as every memory he has, and there’s even that light in her eyes that she got whenever she laughed.

Liv is fucking talented and Robert doesn’t care that he’s crying.  It’s his birthday.  He’s allowed.

Aaron is on one side of him and Liv is on the other and they’re both holding onto him so tightly that he’s pretty sure he can’t move.  And his mother is smiling at them all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I avoid work by procrastinating on [Tumblr](http://beautifulhigh.tumblr.com). Come say hi.


End file.
